Gandía: management of the street lighting energy service. A vision for its residents

Aware of the importance of reducing energy consumption and of not wasting resources, the public administrations are launching energy efficiency projects in different fields. One such project involves street lighting, one of the costliest items on the budget given that electricity consumption per 1,000 residents is distributed as follows: 70% street lighting, 30% the rest. These consumption ratios are very high which adds to the complex financial situation facing many of Spain’s public administrations, not to mention aspects relating to environmental contamination. In such cases, energy efficiency projects assume a high level of importance and demonstrate their worth.

This is accentuated in the case of the local administrations. The harsh economic crisis that hit Spain has involved a before and an after in the energy efficiency services sector. Until fairly recently, city councils were not particularly worried about their energy consumption however as time went on without taking steps in this regard, this has translated into the mismanagement of municipal funds and increased levels of pollution and GHG emissions into the atmosphere.

Worse still, every month that goes by without taking measures as regards street lighting, for example, a town hall unnecessarily spends €5,500 for every 1,000 luminaires already installed, or €66,000 per year. In environmental terms, this is the same as saying that for every 1,000 luminaires on that are changed for more efficient units, a saving in pollutant emissions would be achieved equivalent to planting 125 football pitches worth of trees. In such a situation the only question that has to be asked is: can we allow this to happen? The answer is an easy one: of course not. Read more…